


Steel and stuffing

by bricksandbones



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Depression, Other, self-injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-30
Updated: 2016-03-30
Packaged: 2018-05-30 02:40:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6405442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bricksandbones/pseuds/bricksandbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just easier, in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Steel and stuffing

There’s an ache in your left elbow. Not there,

there. There’s a 

pink scar just running the length of the crease, from

not 

so long ago, like a caress. So

pretty, silvery and

watercolour-soft, like the tenderness you show

to no-one, especially

not yourself. 

 

You show them the other ones. The bars that arc

silvery round your wrists, that slice of white nearly

invisible on the back of your hand. Those you wear

like a badge of 

honour because they speak of things

long past, they say it’s

over and maybe, probably

you’re not fooling anyone but

you never need know.

 

It’s not like we talk about these things, these days.

There’s no sense in it. We look through a frosted-glass window

at each other, nearly close enough to

touch but fundamentally 

uncomprehending. 

 

There’s a throbbing in your right thigh. Not

there, but there where that 

old

wound is: a hypertrophic scar, gnarled and brown-red,

hideous like your insides. Beauty is only skin-deep;

this

is what you really are. An agonised, quivering, overreacting

mass of amorphous scar tissue. If you had to choose one secret 

to keep forever, you’d pick this. 

You don’t want to be rid of it. 

 

You sink back down into your nest of blankets and the opiate that is sleep,

hands curled around your toy. Funny how you thought

you were too old. Nobody’s ever too old for the comforting delusion of unconditional love.

Everybody wants

something. Even if it’s just your existence.

 

You get your fascination with cold steel now: thing is,

metal is never quite as good a mirror as a person. 

Cotton doesn’t mind being crushed. Inanimate objects don’t come with

strings attached (at least not any kind that can’t be cut). They’re not

really any more dispensable than 

people are (shocking thought) but

they can’t be shocked. They don’t have

feelings to hurt. They don’t

want. 

 

You know what it means to be ‘good’. What it actually

takes to get there is lost on you. 

The only person you really understand how to think about is

yourself, and you try to apply the Golden Rule but forget: you’re indisputably 

insane; almost nobody wants exactly the same things you do 

(although the same goes, probably, for

everybody else). 

 

It’s just easier, in the end, steel and

stuffing to my 

blood and bones. We are all

useful and purposeless, too much and too 

little for what we are. We are

whatever you

want us to be;

we understand each other

perfectly well. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I would apologise for being depressing, but I've realised: I'm really not sorry. Nor do I even think, now, that I ought to be. Some of this I write out of spite, some in the pursuit of catharsis - but I read an article the other day about a promising young doctor who killed himself, and nobody saw it coming despite the fact that he'd attempted it more than once before. 
> 
> Nobody who isn't my doctor need ever know how things really get inside my head, but I think you ought to know. Because you deserve it (and that is the spite talking), and because it seems to be largely overlooked that the decision to end one's life is merely the end of a long-drawn out process. I think it's rarely a shock, in hindsight. I think if you looked hard enough, you would understand why.


End file.
